Madam Speaker, I am going to provide an addendum to the question of privilege I originally raised on April 4. As the House will recall, and as the record will show, the question of privilege concerned contradicting statements made by the Minister of National Defence in the House and through an Order Paper question tabled in the House.
To summarize, in the minister's written response of January 30 to Order Paper Question No. 600, he confirmed that the Canadian Armed Forces members in question, those who were fighting ISIS in Operation Impact and were stationed in Kuwait at Camp Arifjan, had received danger pay and hardship tax relief provided by the former Conservative government.
However, in response to questions during question period on March 8 and on March 21, the minister contradicted himself saying:
I would also like to correct the member in terms of the previous government's actions on this. It actually sent troops into Kuwait without the tax-free allowance...
He also said:
...the previous government was the one that actually sent our troops to Iraq without the tax-free benefit.
Both those claims are false based on the facts that were tabled in the House under the minister's signature.
Madam Speaker, the additional evidence I put before the House today comes from a press release issued by the Minister of National Defence. The release concerned changes to the tax relief status of the Canadian Armed Forces personnel stationed in Kuwait. In the release, the minister said:
...I am happy to see that those who were deployed on Operation Impact when the decision was made to reduce the hardship and risk levels will now enjoy the benefits they had when they started their deployment.
These deployments began before September 1, 2016, when those benefits were taken away by the government.
Furthermore, the minister's apologies in the House regarding his record of military service are evidence that he provided false statements on two separate occasions, once in July 2015, and then again after being sworn in as Minister of National Defence on April 18, 2017 in New Delhi, India.
The Minister of National Defence misled Canadians on other issues as well. On December 21, 2016, he told The Globe and Mail while in Iraq, “I haven't had one discussion about the CF-18s”. That was in reference to his meetings with government officials of Iraq.
However, an email on December 20, 2016, from Global Affairs, which we received through an Access to Information request, stated:
...the Iraqi minister of defence was clearly focused on Canada's decision to withdraw its CF-18 fighter jets from the coalition air strikes, asking the [Defence Minister] to reconsider this decision on numerous occasions
Further, in justifying the government's plan to breaking its campaign promises, and undertaking a sole-source purchase of 18 Super Hornet fighter jets, the defence minister has repeatedly insisted that the Royal Canadian Air Force faces a capability gap. However, Lieutenant-General Michael Hood, Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, provided a statement to the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence stating:
...there is sufficient capacity to support a transition to a replacement fighter capability based on the ongoing projects and planned life extension to 2025 for the CF-18.
That was in the Ottawa Citizen, November 25, 2016.
In an open letter, 13 former Royal Canadian Air Force commanders have also called the minister's plan to purchase 18 Super Hornets, ill-advised, costly, and unnecessary. That was in the National Post on February 22.
Madam Speaker, my arguments to my original question of privilege from April 4, remain the same. I hope you will consider this additional evidence in making a ruling which clearly indicates that the Minister of National Defence has misled, fabricated, and embellished other issues on numerous occasions in addition to my original question of privilege.